Should theFederal Government’s refusal to reverse the hikes in electricity tariff and fuel pump price persist, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) will have no other aiternative but to embark on its planned nationwide protest with effect from September 28.
Mr Ayuba Wabba, NLC President, said this while addressing the press at the end of the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the NLC on Tuesday in Abuja.
The NLC’s Central Working Committee (CWC) had on September 17 issued a two-week ultimatum to the Federal Government to reverse the hike in electricity tariff and pump price of petrol or workers would embark on a nationwide protest on September 28.
According to Wabba, the NEC after its extensive deliberations resolved to reject the hike in electricity tariff by almost 100 per cent and also reject the fuel price increase in the name of deregulation.
Said he: “This decision, alongside other decisions of the government including the increase of VAT by 7.5 per cent, other numerous charges by commercial banks on depositors, without any explanation will further impoverish Nigerian workers and citizenry, including their families.
“Therefore, this is coming in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this is not only ‘ill-timed’, but it is also counterproductive”.
He said that NEC also observed that the privatisation process that was done seven years ago had not yielded any positive result and that the entire sector was sold at about N400 billion, noting that the Federal Government within the last four years had injected N1.53 trillion over and above the amount that was used to sell those important assets.
Said Waba: “Therefore, NEC came to the conclusion that the entire privatisation process has failed and the electricity hike is a continuous process of exploitation of Nigerians”.
